A Fire in the Place of a Heart
by Mangascribbler
Summary: A sad, short ONESHOT about Hatter's feelings toward Weaver and what happens when he finds out that she died while he was away. Takes place during chapters 26 and 27 of the Looking Glass Wars.


**A/N: This is my first non-Inuyasha fic, please flame me if you think it sucks that bad. This takes place **_**exactly **_**half way through the Looking Glass Wars (aka the first book).**

**This is a one shot drabble-y thingy I guess. Hatter is one of my favorite characters, so I thought I should write about him… Thanks for reading!**

Fire in place of a Heart:

Hatter and Weaver. The warrior and the scientist. Never to be together.

They were too different in both blood and personality. A Milliner and a civilian, an emotionless man and an erratic woman, a fighter and a pacifist. But together they were.

No one would ever know. At work, Weaver stayed in her laboratory and Hatter in his training rooms or out in the field. The few words they exchanged were stiff and cold, lifeless, as were all the conversations held with Hatter Madigan, the role model of all Milliners.

Outside of work, however, Hatter became only a man and Weaver only a woman. Where Hatter tried to stuff his heart in a dark corner for it to rot and die, Weaver tried to draw it back out and nurtured it, warmed it with her own body, and allowed Hatter to feel again.

How Hatter had hated those damnable _feelings_. Those _things _that had rent his heart to pieces when he had been trapped and duty bound on Earth, kept away from his beloved Weaver. He hadn't realized how much he loved her until they were torn away from one another.

…..

_When_….

Hatter wandered the streets of London today. He had been searching for so very, very long for his princess. Nightly he dreamt of two things. Weaver, and Queen Genevieve; Weaver pleading and crying for him to return and take her away from the horrible, war torn place Wonderland had become, and the queen's rotting, festering corpse shrieking at him that he had let her beloved daughter be lost forever.

_When…._

He shook his head, his top hat humming fondly at the familiar movement of his head. Hatter buried his hands in his deep pockets and walked faster, bowing his head against the misting rain that was trickling from the sky.

Rain. The thing that oh so briefly brought together earth and sky, the two that were forever kept apart and never to touch, brought them together like a loving kiss linking them for an instant.

Just like him and Weaver.

If Weaver was the sky, shifting in color and mood from glorious sunrise to hideous, tumultuous hurricane, that Hatter was the earth, perfectly still and emotionless aside from in his rage when the ground split and trembled, spilling it's molten blood.

But at the touch of the rain the magma would cool and the dirt melt into a puddle.

And it was so with Hatter and Weaver.

_When…. _

Near thirteen years he had been searching. Very near thirteen years. Alyss could be dead now for all he knew, but he had to keep searching.

For if he didn't hold to his duty, what else could he hold to?

He scuffed past a man huddling on the street dressed in rags, muttering to himself.

"Alice…" he sighed, "Alice, I should have saved you when they took you away." Hatter halted abruptly. He had come to see this 'Lewis Carroll' character, but hearing her name whispered by this grubby man… he grabbed the man by the collar.

"What did you say about Alyss?" Hatter growled, hoisting the man off the ground.

"Oy mate, lemmee down!"

"What's your name?" Hatter asked lowly. "I won't repeat myself."

"Q-Quigly Gaffer… They call me Quigly Gaffer!" He stammered, struggling to get loose.

"You said something about Alyss. 'I should have saved you when they took you away,' you said. Where is she?" Hatter shook the man slightly.

"I ain't seen Alice since those blokes took 'er to an orphanage! Thirteen years gone by, you can't expect me to know where she is now!" Quigly choked.

"Do you know where I may find a Lewis Carroll?" Hatter queried, setting the man down now that he had become virtually useless.

"Lewis Carroll? You're in the right town, but I ain't knowing where 'e lives." Hatter gave a slight bow and walked on. He was closer. Very much so.

_When…?_

After much asking around he found the home of Lewis Carroll, or rather, Charles Dodgson. How ironic that the princess' worst tormentor retained a fragment of her former playmate.

The princess was to be married. So Hatter would go to where she was, find her, and take her regardless of her wishes. It was time to return to Wonderland.

But catastrophe struck, and by a lucky break, a new guard shot Hatter. Though anger welled up in him, Hatter turned back and dove into his puddle. (The Looking Glass Wars: page 177)

His arm was shattered, he could feel that. That could be fixed, in time. But not soon enough, he needed to retrieve Alyss _now_.

He shot to the top of the pool of tears, leaving a bloody trail behind him.

_When will I…?_

Dodge Anders pulled the Milliner up and helped him to the camp. Hatter was looking forward to seeing Weaver. He knew her well enough to say that she would never turn to Redd's side. Never.

He staggered through the ragtag camp, people halting to stare in utter awe at the scarred Milliner as they would perhaps a ghost or a god. Hatter was oblivious to this. He searched for one face only in the crowd. He didn't see her, but he could later. He had time to find her. He knew where Alyss was now.

He was greeted like a hero by Generals Doppel and Ganger as well as several chess men. A surgeon was brought and his shoulder more or less mended, and Dodge was dispatched to recover the princess. Hatter was satisfied; he trusted Dodge with Alyss.

He stood after only a few minutes rest, plucking up his top hat but leaving his jacket.

"Where are you going?" Asked General Doppel.

"You're to rest!" Commanded General Ganger.

"I'm going to find Weaver and the other Milliners. They're here, aren't they?" Hatter asked dully. A feeling of apprehension began to grow in his heart as the Generals exchanged glances.

"Hatter…"

"We're sorry but…"

"The Millinery…"

"Was wiped out almost entirely." The Generals said. The bottom seemed to fall out of Hatter's world.

"A woman!" He gasped. "A woman named Weaver. Is she here?" The Generals fused back together and gave him a worried look.

_When will I ever…?_

"Are you all right Hatter?" He asked.

"Answer the question!" the Milliner cried.

"Weaver… there was a civilian named Weaver here… but she…is…"

_When will I ever..._

"Dead." The General finished. Hatter crumpled to his knees in an unwonted display of emotion, burying his face in his hands.

Mourning could wait. This was war. Redd had taken his Weaver.

Weaver had wanted him to feel.

But Hatter now knew only one emotion.

Until he could have time to mourn, he would be overtaken by fury.

Leave his heart to rot in a dark corner and put a fire in its place.

_When will I ever see you again… my Weaver?_


End file.
